Urban Fantasy

The Magicians (The Magicians #1)

Author: Lev Grossman

Average Rating : 2.38 / 5

Trigger Warnings:

Quentin Coldwater is absolutely brilliant.  “Gifted in mathematics” is the term that the school board uses.  He is also completely and utterly bored.  His predictable life in Brooklyn has left him miserable and dissatisfied.  The only sparks of joy in his life are when he is dreaming of being swept up in a magical adventure to Fillory, the fictional wonderland that first enthralled him as a child.  There must be more to life.  Instead, Quentin is left treading water, waiting for his Quest to arrive which will fill him with glory and purpose

But magic is real.  During a too-good-to-be-true encounter, Quentin is invited to enter into the exclusive – and very secret – College of Brakebills in up-state New York, where after 5 hard years of studying, he will matriculate as a full-fledged magician.  And before long, he will also discover that Fillory is not as fictional or fairytale-esque as he always believed. 

Lev Grossman takes a hard look at college life, where dreams smack into reality.  Magic will require excruciating attention to detail, and school uniforms will mix with sex, drugs, and alcohol.  Because what happens when all of your dreams come true and the novelty fades – can happiness be attained?  And does the old adage “Never Meet Your Heroes” also apply to magical lands?  Quentin will have to face these questions when magic doesn’t bring the happy fulfillment that he expected and he is left waiting for the other shoe to drop.  

Corinna : 2.5/5

I had such high hopes for this book! When the reviews were making comparisons to Hogwarts, it definitely grabbed my attention. Unfortunately I was left wanting so much more…and in the end not getting it. Quentin comes across as a whiny, depressed teenager who pines after escaping the real world, and nothing makes him happy. Even when he gets the things he has always wanted, he is still whiny, depressed and boring. He never amounts to much in the story, and I found him to be a lack-lustre main character. That being said, Grossman does portray a very real understanding of depression in Quentin’s character.  I just really wanted something more than the depression. I initially enjoyed the nods to other well-known fantasy and magical realms such as Narnia, Hogwarts, and Lord Of The Rings, but I also felt Grossman used these references as a crutch to avoid having to create a whole new world. Fillory is not a well-thought-out world, and there aren’t very many desirable qualities about it, so when it is being compared to and placed in the same category as the legendary worlds of Hogwarts, Narnia, and Middle Earth, I get mad! It is nowhere near the quality of these stories! As this book is the first in a trilogy, I can only hope it gets better from here, but I don’t have high hopes.

Lydia : 2.5/5

This book deals heavily with sex and drugs and has very mature content, so for starters I would not recommend this to a younger audience. While I have heard many comparisons to Harry Potter, I didn’t feel as if this book was on the same level or could compare to the magical series that we hold so close to our hearts. All it really shares is that they both deal with the magic concept. There is so much that happens in this novel but at the end I was left feeling like nothing huge ever really occurred and if it did, it was rather boring. The characters were all made to seem perfect initially and you quickly realize how untrue that is. I did enjoy the more mature content because it made it interesting and scandalous. I am honestly not sure if I can say this should be in the genre of fantasy. It needs its own genre, I just don’t know what that would be yet.

Megan : 2/5

This book was marketed as Harry Potter meets The Chronicles of Narnia for adults. Instead of seven years at Hogwarts, you have five years at Brakebills and it’s the magical land of Fillory, not Narnia. The main character, Quentin, is Invited to partake in the Exam, which offers him a place at Brakebills. I still wish I got a letter from Hogwarts, or found Narnia in the back of a wardrobe, but I have no desire to go to Brakebills or to find Fillory.

For the longest time, I felt that the book had no point. Quentin is a bit of a loner and a self-saboteur. There’s all this build up about Fillory and Quentin’s obsession with it, but as soon as he finally gets there, he seems to lose all interest. Grossman also couldn’t seem to figure out Quentin’s character, because at times it felt all over the place. One minute he’s cocky and asking for a fight, the next he’s cowering.

There also seems to be a lot of pointless sex scenes and sexist remarks. Women are described based on how sexy they are and their breast size. The sex scenes were thrown in to prove that this is an ‘adult’ book, but did nothing to further the plot.

After all that, why do I rate this book a three? All of that should constitute a lower rating and maybe it would have, but the ending is decent. The group of magicians figure out their quest and arrive at the destination. There is action, magic, and finally a point to the previous 300+ pages. This is book one of a trilogy and it would’ve been easy to treat this as a stand-alone, but I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt and hope the other books live up to expectations.

Sharaya : 2.5/5

I’m not sure what I was expecting – well, no, I was expecting Hogwarts University – but this was not that.  First of all, I found more Narnia than Hogwarts in this book, despite what other reviews may claim.

It was intriguing to have a magical world filled with university aged students who are away from home for the first time and are stretching their limits and experimenting with alcohol, drugs, and sex.  It felt more real, less fairytale-ish.  It was a fresh, new take for Grossman to attempt on a well-worn magical theme.  And I thought it was really fun that the characters knew their pop-culture references.  They saw their magical world through the lens of having read Chronicles of Narnia, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, and of course Fillory and Beyond.  

However, I did not appreciate that Grossman moved beyond references and into the bastardization of those beloved books, particularly of Narnia.  He took the lazy route and flat out stole elements of those stories, barely twisting them into something new.  Fillory and Beyond seemed to be a poor man’s Narnia rather than an equally new and enthralling work of fiction to add to the likes of Narnia, Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter.  This would have been so much better if the books that Quentin was so obsessed with had sounded worthy of his devotion.

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